Six Nights
by geophf
Summary: So she came, she left. I don't mean she ... 'came'-came. I meant she, ... oh, never mind! Anyway, back to normal for me. Yeah. Right.
1. Lucky

**Chapter summary:** : What with the Depression on, in the New West, you're d-mn lucky to have a job at all ... if you're a man. If you're a woman, well, you know the score.

* * *

My name is Lisa.

I'm not telling you this. This doesn't matter to you. It matters to me.

After all these years, that all I have: my name.

My name is Lisa.

...

"Thank you, sir," I said humbly. "Please pay madame on your way out."

I didn't say their names. I knew their names. I knew who they were. I knew what they did. Miners, mostly. Farmers or ranchers, some; ranch-hands. Deputies.

Church-goers.

Husbands.

But I didn't say their names, because, of course, being blind, I couldn't see them, so, obviously, I couldn't know who they are, now, could I.

That's what made me popular with some of them. They weren't cheating of their wives if nobody saw them cheating, right? I was by no means the most popular girl. Others ... okay, Sarah, ... was so much better at this than I was, and some men wanted you to 'see' them. My blind eyes, seeing nothing, accused them with a justice that seeing eyes couldn't convey.

Some, ... a lot, didn't mind it. I was a whore. A hole to fuck, and they fucked it, and got away with it, scott-free.

Well, not 'free'-free. They paid. Madame saw to that.

You can cheat a blind girl by leaving two pieces of paper and calling it two dollars. You can cheat a blind girl and leave some of the copper you mined and calling them genuine gold dollars. You can't cheat madame.

I wasn't as popular after at first when some of the sirs tried to get away with that shit.

'Sirs.' As if. But 'John' was actually some of their names (or 'Jan' if they were older. Much older.), and 'sir'? Young boys, my age, working. So, so, grateful to be working seven days a week for a pittance.

God, the Depression is hard on everybody, isn't it? We're the lucky ones. We're out here on the frontier, not dying in New York City, children freezing to death in their tiny apartments without heat, or starving. New York City, thousands, ... hundreds of thousands, millions? out of work, out of home, starving, dying.

It boggles the mind.

We're the lucky ones.

I was lucky.

Yeah. I was lucky.

I never knew my dad. He died in a mining accident. Happens every year, right? One person or another, or ten, or twenty die. Everybody cries. What a tragedy.

They everybody's lives go on. Never mind the families left behind. I mean, you have your own problems, and that was yesterday's news.

My mom ...

Well, a woman, out here. You're married or you're fucked. There are no jobs for women. At all, really. You're lucky if you're the school marm. Maybe have a job at the bar as a bar maid. Maybe.

The rest ...

My mother died young. Whores do. They get used up, and they die. My mom lasted as long as she could for me. She died old, old, old at twenty-six, five years longer than most whores last.

What, some knight riding in on a white horse was going to come rescue her to her happily ever after? Her happily ever after was a laudanum overdose, she went out an opium addict, screaming and crying, I guess.

I don't know. I didn't see it. Blind, you know. And I was all of five, then.

No, I'm not bitter. I'm alive. I have a job, too.

A blind girl on her own? I'm one of the lucky ones.

I'm one of the lucky ones.

One of the advantages of being blind is all the other senses are fined-tuned to razor-sharpness.

A blessing and a curse. I can feel their stubble on my skin like sand paper. And men, from the mines, or from a hard day working on the ranches?

They stink. Something fierce.

I heard outside my room. "Thank you, sir, do come again!" Madame said brightly, the coin clinking in her hands.

She knew the sir was coming again.

They always did.

...

The night progressed as it always did. I earned my keep – another day's pay, another day's room and board – on my back, the sir on top of me. He did his business, and I did mine. Old? Young? Accomplished? Bumbling?

After the first year, it doesn't really matter. I gave up caring years ago. The girls who cared died so fast, a star burning out so quickly, their lives destroyed with their innocence. Me? I couldn't afford innocence. I'm sorry, but I knew the score. I knew where I fit in. I made madame her money, and the second I didn't, I was as good as dead. So, the sirs did their business, and I did my business... no, I was the business.

Whatever.

Like most sirs, he didn't say anything, and this one was 'smart': he didn't let me touch his face, so I could 'see' him. So I had 'no idea' who he was.

By his grunts, by his smell, by the feel of the pubes on his face that he was trying to cultivate into a beard to be a man now.

He was nineteen this year, wasn't he.

Not that I would know.

What with him being my next door neighbor, growing up. My age.

Not that I would know.

He entered me, I guess, he grunted, and that was that. He pulled out and pulled up his pants without ceremony, leaving me lying on the bed.

"Thank you, sir," I said softly, "please play madame on your way out."

He didn't even bother to grunt a reply, he just left.

I heard him pay madame outside my door. Walls on the second floor of the Lonesome Dove saloon are paper-thin.

But I heard something that gave me concern.

Madame's voice. "Thank you, sir, do come again."

There was a strain to it. And she didn't clink the coin gleefully.

Then something odd happened.

She came in.

"Get up!" she hissed at me furiously, "and get yourself cleaned up! Now, girl!"

I blinked, surprised.

Madame never talked to me. She only talked when there was trouble, and I was never any trouble.

"Oh, for!" Madame hissed.

She crossed the room quickly and grabbed my hair, pulling me upright. That hurt.

"Aaaahhh!" I whimpered. I knew this wouldn't do anything, but it still hurt, more the shock of it than anything.

She shook my head fiercely in her tight grip. "Are you deaf as well as blind?"

"No!" I snapped back, stunned by the accusation.

You just don't do that, that is: if you have any compassion left in your soul at all.

Madame did not have this problem, of course.

"Then you listen, and you listen good!" she hissed. "We have a very important person who's asked for you. This is the first time she's asked for our services and depending on how you do, this could mean we keep her business or we lose it. You do what she wants, whatever she wants, and you make damn sure she leaves satisfied, or I swear by all that's holy, I will make this the worst and last night of your miserable life. Do you understand me, girl?"

I gulped. "Um, ... 'she'? But I don't ..."

Madame's grip on my head tightened painfully. I cried out again, feeling the roots of my hair stabbing into my scalp, agonizing needles.

"You don't what!" she snarled into my face. "You get fucking cleaned up now, you little cunt!"

Then she threw me forcefully back down on the bed. "Jesus-God, save me from fucking idiots!" she spat, and she left, slamming the door behind her.

Then she scurried off, rushing to reassure this She, I'm sure, that everything was fine.

The implication to me was: it damn-well better be.

I sat up on the bed, and tried to control my breathing. You control your breath, you control your fury.

I couldn't control my breath. It felt like madame had punched me in the gut.

No. I can breathe. I can.

I can breathe.

I took a long, slow, deep breath.

There.

I blinked the tears from my eyes.

Time to get cleaned up.

Must be really important She. I didn't ever clean up for nobody. Just a wipe between my legs was good enough for the next sir. I guess women were different than men. Huh. If she wanted me clean, maybe she'd take her time.

Maybe I'd get to know what it feels like to cum for once in my life. Haha! Fancy that.

I smirked at that joke. I am so funny!

Ain't I.


	2. Saddests

**Chapter summary:** Oh, great! She'n one of them. I heard of them _'saddests.'_ Get their kicks out of hurtin' other people. Sick fucks. And just guess who I got as my customer tonight? Well, I ain't playin' that game! She lay a hand on me to hurt me, I will make her hand regret it. But then I found out she didn't have to lay a hand on me. Them saddests get into your head to hurt you but good, don't they. Fuck.

* * *

I sat on the bed and I waited for Her.

Hm, hm, hm.

I am a very patient person.

So I waited.

Nothing.

... okay, three million years later.

I sighed in frustration and got up from the bed and left the room.

What, you never see a blind girl walk in a place she's lived in for years? I knew my way around, thank you very much. Sometimes, the other girls, if they wanted to be mean, would move a piece of furniture and I'd run smack-dab into a table or chair. Haha, very funny, blind girl look stupid.

Yuck it up, bitches.

But one time I tripped over a log somehow misplaced from the stove and landed on my face. It was hilarious until madame saw my shiner and then we all got a tanning none of us soon forgot. Madame was furious with me.

For being blind.

But she didn't let the other girls off the hook, neither.

I didn't ... hate them. It was all in good fun for them, and life as a whore is boring when you're working, and then during the day the real hard work of upkeep of the saloon just wore down on you: cleaning, cleaning, cleaning, washing everything, filling orders, looking pretty for the sirs so they come for you after, and then the next day, cleaning everything again, washing everything again. All of it, over and over and over again.

We were very ... clean. We had to be. We were a business: madame ran a tight ship upstairs, and Ned ran a respectable saloon below, so it had to be pristine at all times.

But ... okay, so I had a no-show. No big deal, but if I were to slack, I'd 'hear' about it from madame, and this particular customer seemed to be important. I couldn't sweep this one under the rug and pretend everything was fine when it wasn't.

I found madame easy. Everybody has their own presence: their own sound, their own smell, their own bustle, their own impatience. Madame's presence was easy to find because it was bigger'n most most the times, and a lot more impatient.

Tonight was different, because now her presence was just spilling out on over to everyone, meaning: the other girls, and nobody wanted to be near her.

'Cept Sarah, our number one girl, who didn't give a fuck, pardon my french, but she ain't scared-a nobody, and she made no bones about it, neither. Madame warned her to mind her sass, and beat her but good, but if ever madame curbed Sarah, which was up for debate, she never cowed her.

One day that attitude would kill that girl, but that's none of my business now, is it?

I cleared my throat discreetly.

Madame rounded on me as if I had just blown the last trump. "What the _fuck_ are you doing here? I thought I told to clean the fuck up and wait for..."

"She never showed," I cut in.

Madame's tirades. If you let them go on, she'd work herself into a frenzy, which invariable ended up with you learning your lessons from the business end of her crop while bent over her desk.

 _"WHAT?"_ Madame shrieked and brushed right past me, storming down the hall.

Silence.

You get a whore house quiet?

Sarah's smirking voice cut into the silence. "You are in ... _so_ much trouble."

"She never showed," I explained.

Sarah snorted. "Says the blind girl. Here's some news for you: she went into your room."

"Excuse me," I said hotly. "I would know if somebody came into my room!"

"Yeah, right," Sarah retorted mockingly. "Like, how, Lisa? You _saw_ her, or summthin'?"

"No, because ... AAAAHH!" I shouted in frustration.

Telling a sighted-person how you know something is like ... I don't know, talking to a wall.

A stupid wall.

Sarah tittered, but little Aoife, the poor kid, piped. "No, Lisa, we all saw, we did!"

The rest of the room was oppressive in its silent accusation of me.

A silence I didn't get a chance to defend against, for Madame, a tidal wave, swept in, and dragged me back to my room, nearly pulling my arm from its socket. She jerked the door open and walked me purposefully back beside the bed, but didn't shove me down on it, which surprised me somewhat.

"Miss," Madame said crisply, "I am _so_ sorry for this, ehrm, misunderstanding. This gurl, here, well, as you can see, she's not what you'd call..."

Suddenly Madame stopped.

I don't know why. I can only guess the She motioned her to stop.

But why didn't I hear it?

You can hear people move, obviously, but you hear them gesture, even if they're standing still, if you listened hard.

I was listening hard. I knew which direction madame was talking to, but in that direction of the room...

Nothing.

Nothing was there.

"Um," Madame said, a more contrite tone. "If you're, um, displeased and ... uh, want your money back, I will be ... happy to give you a full and complete ... uh, ..."

Again, silence.

I felt confusion and controlled anger rolling off madame in waves, but diffused, not directed.

"Well," she capitulated, "do ... uh, ... please let me know, personally, if you need anything, and I will see to it right away, and ..."

Madame paused, dithering: "Well, ... um, ... I'll ... leave you to it, then. Good night. Oh, and thank you so much and please do come again and ..."

Madame left.

I swallowed. I had never heard her so unsure of herself.

And, as for me, I was in very new territory here. My world was a very understood thing. I knew the concreteness of the world, its solidness, from my senses that told me everything in the world, from my senses that had never failed me before.

In my room, madame was addressing somebody, or madame was addressing nobody and had gone insane just now, ... along with all the other girls who said they saw somebody who had entered my room.

But this was impossible, I tell you.

Impossible.

"Miss?" I offered.

Nothing.

I breathed.

No. There was something. There was a something in the air, a sweetness in my room that wasn't man-stink, and wasn't my soap-clean-ness (cheap perfume was a turn-off for men so I didn't wear it), it was ... it was ... I couldn't put my finger on it, but it was there, even as a person wasn't.

No, I swear. I would know if there were a person in my room, wouldn't I?

I felt a sudden chill, fueled by my new uncertainty. I wanted to wrap myself in a shawl, but I was feeling very self-conscious right now to draw attention to myself.

"I'm sorry, miss," I said. "But, I can't see, ..." _No, duh!_ I shouted to myself, me, with my eyes closed, but sometimes you just have to state the obvious, "... and I can't tell ..."

But then I stopped. I can't tell what? That's she's here? So if she wasn't, I was talking to an empty room, and if she was, then I was, what? stupid?

I felt so lost. "... I can't tell what you want, if'n you don't tell me."

"Hm."

She said.

"What I 'want.'"

She said.

But I thought:

Her.

Voice.

I gulped, but then I also realized I didn't know where her voice came from. It felt like it filled the room, not like shouting, because she didn't, not like whispering, but like it. I can't describe it, only to say that it was inside me, like in my tummy, and outside me, like floating through the whole room, no, like it was the whole room, and the room was so small that her voice contained the room, no, the whole saloon.

Everything stopped, but that was weird, because I heard the bustle going on outside my room, like the world kept going on, but in the room, there was her voice, then there was a silence so profound, it was like time stopped and waited inside the room.

I swallowed again, "Yes," I croaked, barely above a whisper, "um, what you want, so ..."

"Be still."

Terror gripped my heart.

Her voice came from a different place in the room. Again, I couldn't pinpoint it, because it was everywhere, and it was nowhere, but now it was ... not beside me, but ... beside me.

I turned in that direction, but still nothing.

No, not nothing. Absence. People had a presence, and I could feel them. I could 'see' them by it, their smell, their sounds, their taste on my tongue, even. This was the opposite. I couldn't feel this presence.

I felt this absence, though, and it was beginning to scare me.

I heard my own breath in the room, and nothing else.

Whispered. "I almost killed ... Someone ... tonight, and what frightens me is that is what I want, so badly it gnaws away at my reason and sears my very being. So instead of murdering Her, I choose to kill you, or see if I do not kill you. This is what I want."

I stood still.

Tried to, I felt my hands go clammy and my body was a-tremblin'.

"Uh, ..." I offered intelligently.

I just found out what She wanted. I was afraid it was she wanted to fuck me. There were girls for that here. I wasn't one of them. Most our clients were sirs. All us girls serviced them. Sometimes we got other customers. I didn't know why this She wanted me of all people, besides my guess that me being blind would keep her anonymous, but like everybody seen her come into the saloon and go upstairs, anyway?

But this?

"Uh, ..." I tried to say something around the lump in my throat.

"So," She continued, "now you know what I want. Does this knowledge please you?"

"O-okay, so, uh, miss, first off," I said, angry now, at Her, obviously, not at me being scare-a Her, "that ain't legal here, and second off, I ain't goin' down without no fight. I may be blind, but I swear to God, I ain't no push-over. I will make you regret you layin' a hand on me to do me harm, and I will scream down the walls, and help will come-a ... will come a-coming, it will, I swear."

"Mm, hm," her answer was a dismissive, careless wave. "Or, you could just walk right out of this room – I won't stop you – ... tell me: how well do you think you will be received this time, hm? Better than the last time?"

"Um, ..." I offered weakly.

"Do you think they will rush to your aid, as you say, from your rallying cry? Really?"

"Uh," I said, 'seeing' in my mind how this would play out: just as She said, "no. They, uh, won't rush to my aid. No."

More like the opposite, I thought bitterly. Being the butt of the other girls' scorn would be the least of my concerns. Me telling them: crazy rich bitch wants to kill me! Their laughter in my face would only stop when Madame showed up to kill me herself.

"So, here we are, then." Irony was rich in a voice that pierced me to the core. "And now we have a right understanding, don't we?"

"Uh, ..."

 _"DON'T WE!"_ She snarled, softly, menacingly, her voice right in front of me.

"Yes," I whispered, lost, confused, defeated. A-scared.

Silence. My breathing was the only sound in the room.

Do you understand me? The room was empty except for me, ... but it wasn't.

I was going insane.

"Sit down," She commanded.

I sunk down onto the bed.

"Do you see your worth now?" She asked.

"Y-yes," I said.

"Really?"

Her demand was cold and unrelenting.

"Y-yeah," I said.

"What is it?"

"'Bout ten or so dollars a night, most nights," I said.

"Really?" She said. "And you keep this much each night?"

I barked a surprised laugh. I found this funny.

She didn't.

Cold silence greeted me.

"Uh, no, 'course not." I explained eventually. "I keep 'bout a dollar a night, dependin', and then I have to pay for the room and my board, and at the end of the month, I find myself more in the hole so ... yeah, so ... yeah ... I ain't worth nothin', I guess."

Suddenly I wanted to cry. I was squeezing my eyes tighter and tighter but it didn't stop me from tearing up.

Ain't never had a night like this. Never. Usually I got fucked, yeah, but never this bad. Didn't know it could hurt like this after the first time when I thought I didn't care anymore.

Caring hurts. A lot.

She laughed a soft, cruel laugh. "So no one, _no one,_ will miss you if you were dead and gone. Not one soul. Correct?"

Wow. I blinked rapidly, but the tears fell from my eyes anyway. I didn't think it was possible for me to cry anymore. I guess I was wrong about that.

"Yeah," I whispered.

"Welcome to reality," She said sardonically. "Finally somebody who gets this, ..." She paused. "But these tears?" She reached out to my cheek and captured one with her finger. She must have just come in, and not have worn gloves: her hands were ice-cold.

Only somebody so stupid to stay outside in these cold Winter nights had hands that cold ...

... or the dead ...

That's why everybody was home at a welcoming fire, not here as much. They drinked their drink, they fucked their whore, and they were gone. Winter nights here were dead oftentimes, and that made it harder: the waiting with nothing to do and madame getting more 'n more pissed that you weren't on your back making her more money.

I was brought back to the right here and now by something. I felt something from Her for the first time: I felt her place her hand to her lips and I felt her suck in my tear. I felt this like the wind, and I heard her indrawn breath, for the first time.

"These tears mean you still maintain to some misplaced hope that it will get better than this, doesn't it?" She demanded.

"No," I retorted, petulant.

But I thought sullenly: _tell me what I hoped for?_ And now I knew my Customer. She wanted to know my hope so she could crush it. She got her jollies seeing others miserable. I knew the type. Their whole lives were shit, just like everybody else's, but so they had to make everybody else feel worse so they could say they weren't the worst off 'n anybody. When they were. These people were the worst.

Fuck. Just when I thought my bad day couldn't get any worse. _What did I do to deserve this!_

It was just so God-damn unfair! Blind. Parents dead, so I'm just hanging on to my life for ... what? I don't know, and now some out-of-towner makes me want to feel like shit because of it?

She put her hand out to my face again, shocking me, because I didn't hear her hand move, and I didn't know until I felt her cold finger under my chin, tilt my head up.

"Open your eyes," she whispered.

I sniffled. "I can't see," I responded automatically.

"So?" She said. "I didn't ask that."

"S-some people don't like my blind eyes lookin' at them," I said.

"And do you presume to think me as 'some people'?"

She didn't sound offended, as anyone saying those words would.

She sounded amused. Toying with me. Great.

"No," I whispered.

"Well?" The tone of her voice was imperious, impatient.

I opened my eyes, seeing nothing.

Like, what? Was I expecting anything else? A miracle, just because She thought She was God's gift, or something.

I was slightly disappointed that a miracle didn't actually occur, but a bitter, comforting thought warmed my belly: _shows Her that She isn't God's gift! Take that!_

But I hated that I capitalized Her as I thought of Her. The sirs were just sirs. Why was She different?

"Look at me," She commanded.

Maybe she 'talka-no-Englaze.' I don't know.

"I. can't. see." I explained slowly, waves of sorrow nearly robbing me of any shred of dignity I still had. "I. am. blind."

"Thank you," She said dismissively. "I didn't ask that either. I told you to look at me."

I sighed.

Okay. Whatever She wants.

I 'looked' at her, seeing nothing.

But, as I kept my eyes open, something started to happen, inside me. I can't explain it. I couldn't see her. If you put a gun to my head and told me to describe Her, I'd have to say, 'Shoot me.'

I couldn't see Her.

But somehow, I felt Her, seeing me.

I felt her looking into my soul.

I burst into tears, because I finally 'saw' myself through Her eyes, and I saw what an utter waste my life was. When She said nobody would miss me if I were gone, I finally 'saw' what She meant, because 'I' wouldn't be gone. Nothing would be gone, because that's what I was: nothing. Absolutely nothing.

She held my chin in place, a firm, unwavering ledge her finger was forever and ever and ever, and as I cried, I thought: _Great!_ _Crying in front of a 'very important' customer!_

Madame will be so pleased when she hears back from this one. Sarah was right: I am so fucked.

But this anger at myself passed, even as my sorrow did not, and when it did, She removed her hand, and I felt her withdraw.

"Thank you," She said.

Just that.

I sniffled.

I felt Her regard. "You are thirsty," She observed. "I will get you some water."

"I can get it myself," I said quickly.

"Mm, hm," She said. I felt her come right up to me. "Stay here."

"Okay,"

"Not _'okay'!"_ She snarled. She took my hands in hers, and I felt them for the first time, incredibly cold, but perfectly smooth, not like the calloused, work-worn hands of mine. These were the hands of a rich, rich, pampered girl.

She took my hands and put them, palm down, on the bed at my sides, pressing them down. "You will not _move_ these hands until I say otherwise, understand me?"

I gulped. "Yes," I whispered but now a new fear crept in. I heard of this type. They were called 'saddests' because of French king was called that or something. He got his kicks by torturing people. Fuck, she might actually make good on her threat of wanting to kill me.

"Then say it," She commanded.

Yeah, they were like this, I heard: they had their formulas that you had to follow to the letter.

I didn't hear how you got out of their sick games, though, so I just said it: "I won't move my hands..."

I gulped hard. I almost said 'okay,' like what a normal human being would say to calm her damn ass down, but at the last second I remembered she didn't like that, so I swallowed that word before I said it.

Her hands rested on mine a whole second more, making sure I got the point. Then they went away. Gone, soundlessly.

"Uh, miss?" I called out.

Was she here, ... was she already gone? I couldn't tell.

"What is it?" she asked.

God, she was still here! How does she _do_ that?

"Can I, uh, close my eyes now?"

"Yes," she said, gravely. "You may close your eyes."

She added as an afterthought: "You have pretty eyes."

"Thanks?" I offered, blushing like a school girl, confused as hell at her words.

I closed my eyes gratefully.

But I never heard anyone say that before. Heard the opposite, in fact. My blind eyes freaked people out. I didn't have to ask people if I could close my eyes. No: it was _"shut yer God d'mned eyes!"_ until I learned to close'm before I scared away paying customers. I learned that early in life.

Nobody, ever, told me I had pretty eyes.

Her, telling me that now? It freaked me out.

Just like this dead silence that was her response now.

 _Great!_ I thought.

I tried not to think that too loud, though. I heard these 'saddests' got in your head.

I had heard right, and now I have that terrifying experience to confirm it myself.

I sniffled, and waited, my hands stuck to the bed. I couldn't lift'm. I couldn't even try: they were stuck there with an invisible weight too heavy for me even to move'm.

Her command.


	3. Enough

**Chapter summary:** She ain't from around here. Obviously an out-of-towner. Just how far out of town, though ... I don't know.

* * *

"Drink this."

I screamed.

She chuckled. "Mm, hm," she remarked dryly, "I do affect people that way, yes."

"Okay," I shouted, furiously. "You ain't human! ... You ... What are you?"

I felt the silence like it were a thing. Just like I felt her absence, her not being in the room, or the room being emptier, because she was in it.

"What on Earth do you mean?" she demanded coolly. She put on this air of polite disinterest, like she were talking to a little child, but I could sense she wasn't happy about my comment.

Not at all.

I just blurted that out, but apparently it hit close to the bone, I guess.

I took deep, calming breaths, trying to slow my beating heart. "You can't ..." I said. "I mean, there ain't no way you can come into this room and me not know it. Nobody can do that."

"Yet," she said slowly, "here I am."

"Yet here you are, and ..." I swallowed. "And it ain't possible!"

"What's not possible?" she probed.

I sighed. "You make sounds. I mean, people make sounds. You leave my room, you come back, I would'a heard you!"

"Sounds," she stated.

"YES!"

I was losing my cool. I mean, I had lost my cool a while ago, but me having to explain this was just making me lose whatever control I had over my temper.

"Sound like if I were to step on this floorboard here?" she asked.

 _Squeak!_ The floorboard announced her presence softly, muffled by the throw-rug.

"... yes?" I said slowly, but I was shocked. How could she know this?

"... Or if I were to open the door thusly?" she asked again.

The door. I heard the handle a-turn, then the door sighed open, the hinges creaking as the door pivoted.

"Yeah," I said, "that."

"So I don't open the door noisily, do I," she stated. "Nor do I choose to slam it closed, but instead, _doucement, doucement,_ and ... it's closed."

Not one sound came from the door, nor the hinges, nor the handle, nor the frame as the door closed shut.

Or so I reckoned.

"The door's closed," I said, checking.

"Yes," she said, right next to me.

 _"Jesus!"_ I shouted, shocked yet again.

She didn't laugh this time. A grave silence fell, the she bunched my hair in her fist – I sucked in a surprised gasp – and then she pushed my head down a little bit.

She let me go.

I blinked, gulping. "What was that for?" I demanded.

"'At the Name of Jesus, every knee shall bow.'" She intoned seriously.

"Oh," I said.

But I thought: _Oh, goodie! A Bible-freak._

I hate Bible-freaks. Some of them tried to save your soul, or guilt you while _they_ fucked you. I know, right? And if you didn't repent of your sins as they fuck you, well ... some of them got violent. Really violent.

Sarah got beat up once. Bad. Really bad. Like, we didn't know if she were gonna live or not. She had to rest up for a long spell.

It was her father's neighbor. Turns out he was real pissed at her for whoring herself out after the Spanish Flu took her parents and 'making' him lust after her when she should've known he wanted her all to himself.

And he had a daughter her age, too. Isn't that nice?

The sick bastard wasn't welcome around here no more, even though he made amends, paying and all, but still. Madame said no. Once violent, and it's so easy to be violent again.

"I'm sorry, miss," I said aloud, trying to prevent any outburst from her at my offenses. "I didn't mean anything by it."

Maybe that would work, an apology to nip her righteous anger in the bud.

"You say things you don't mean, then?" She said.

I just shook my head, but inside, I was thinkin': _Jesus._

 _..._

"While I was gone, did you move your hands?" she asked.

"No," I said.

"Not even to scratch your nose?" she pressed.

 _"Heh,"_ I laughed. This one had a sense of humor, I thought... or did she?

She waited for my answer.

"No," I said, "my nose didn't get itchy."

"But if it did, would you have scratched it?"

 _Boy._ I thought. _This one._

I sighed. "I guess, ..." I said, "if I were to be honest with you ..."

"Please," she interjected.

I shot daggers her way.

"Well," I retorted after the interruption, "I guess we'll never know, now, will we!"

And I thought: _Ha! Take that!_ I was pleased that she didn't have the high ground now. Something she would always wonder and never know the answer to.

After a thoughtful pause, she said: "Take this. It's water."

"I can move my hands?" I checked.

 _"Yes."_ Her reply was testy.

I smirked: _ooh, who got a bee in her bonnet now?_

I lifted my hands from the bedside, easy as you please. She placed the glass in my hands, being careful, I noted, not to touch my hands with hers.

Like I would forget the feel of her touch now. Like I would ever forget.

"May I?" I asked. I don't know why I felt I needed to ask. It just felt like ... I don't know: like there was a standard she demanded. Like she would be disappointed with impoliteness. And like her disappointment meant something.

Why? Why would what she thought mean anything to me? Men came and went, and not one thought of theirs touched me.

Maybe it was because nobody thought anything, really? Except this one. You could feel the weight of her judgements as if they were a real thing.

I don't know.

"Please," she said.

I drank.

The water was cool, almost cold, almost like her hands, and ... sweet? Not like sugared, but like clean water, just drawn from the river, not like the water here that had been stored away for ages and ages, getting musty.

It was like miracle water.

I swallowed. "Wow!" I uttered.

She chuckled lightly. "Wow, indeed," she remarked, pleased, then added curtly, "drink up."

 _Bossy!_ I shot her way as I downed the water.

It was harder, actually, to do. It was water that couldn't be gulped down, but I felt embarrassed, me, just sittin' here, drinking water, and her watching me.

"Uh," I offered between sips, "you gonna drink, too, or ...?"

"Who says I'm not drinking now?" she shot back.

"Oh," I said. Of course. Why wouldn't she be drinking, too? Besides the fact that I would hear her as she drank: her sleeve brushing against her bodice, the sound of the liquid going down her throat, ... anything.

But the sounds coming from her? Nothing. Not one sigh of a sound from her at all.

"I prefer something much stronger than water, however," she added cryptically.

"Oh," I said. "'Course." I shrugged. "Well, enjoy."

 _Good._ I though. She can drink her whiskey; I'll drink my water.

I just hoped she wasn't a mean drunk. She didn't sound like she'd be one, but you really never can tell. Sometimes it was the quiet ones that were the most dangerous. But it's not like I haven't dealt with this before. You just got to read them right, respond to what they needed, calming, not feeding their fury. Most ways, all ways, it ended up with me on my back and him pounding into me, taking out on me all his anger and frustration that he took on the job. If he didn't get violent – most cases the sir didn't – then he'd just fuck me and be done with it, all spent out when he came. If he did get violent, then, well, that really sucked for him.

A blind girl can see you way better'n you can, pal, and knows exactly where to hurt you so bad you are done for the night.

Then madame or sometimes some of the other girls would eject you downstairs, with a warning if they were feeling generous, or right out the front door, right in front of everybody, telling you never to come back if you got nasty about it.

"Eheh," she laughed lightly.

That laugh gave me pause.

"You wouldn't want me to drink alone, now, would you?" she asked sweetly.

"Um, ..." I said.

"Oh, I insist!" she teased lightly.

But I heard the very clear menacing undercurrent.

And now I knew I was in trouble. See, sometimes a guy was feeling gallant, which means: being stupid, and would offer one of the girls a drink. Maybe he felt like a white knight? Maybe he was hoping for special treatment later ... who knew how the minds of men worked? But we had it down pat. We'd take the offered drink, pretending to drink some, and just bring it back to Ned to empty. What? _Somebody_ has to be in control, and obviously a man with his dick out, drunk as a skunk, was not in control. You put a little whiskey on your breath, you're good, and he's pleased that he treated you nice-like. Win, win.

But here? With Her? All alone? Up in my own room?

There was no distraction to ditch the drink, nowhere to ditch it, and with her, watching me like a hawk, I'm sure, no way out of this fix.

And I, unlike 'some' (most) of the other girls, was not a heavy drinker, ... nor smoker, ... didn't do any of the tar, neither. It wasn't that I was a prude, or anything. It was just that I wasn't stupid: you need your wits sharp to survive day-by-day and alcohol, peyote or laudanum made you dull and stupid, not sharp.

A smoke, now and then, after a fuck, okay, yeah, but otherwise, no, thankee.

This. How to get out of this gracefully?

C'mon, Lisa! Think! Think! Think!

I heard her pour out one shot glass, then the next.

 _Fuck._ I _heard_ her pour the glasses, when I never heard her even open the God-damn door!

She meant me to hear this.

Fuck my sweet ass, I'm fucked!

"Drink with me?" she asked, but the way she asked didn't leave any room to gainsay her.

I gulped. "Uh, sure, okay. Um, it's just ..."

"It's just what?" she asked lightly.

She placed the shot-glass on the end-table by my bed: _clunk._

I nearly jumped in place at the soft thud of the sound her invisible body made, now near to me, not across the room, a-pourin' the drink.

"It's just that," I said, "I'm not really much of a drinker at all. I mean, I won't be able to keep up with you, you know what I mean?"

There was a pause, a breath of stillness in the room.

Then, whispered in my ear, right beside me, wickedly: _"Good!"_

A shiver went up and down my spine as the word entered my being.

I could think only one thing: _Evil. Pure evil._

If I could see her now, I would know what evil looked like. She was taking her own sweet time playing me and loving seeing me squirm under her torture. She wasn't a fuck me and forget me sir that came a-callin' every night. No, this was definitely different.

I don't like different.

"Uh, ..." I offered helplessly.

She took the empty water glass from my hand and placed it on the end-table. I felt the shot-glass fit into my hand, smaller, heavier. Not much liquid in the glass, thank God!

"Cheers," she said.

"Uh, cheers!" I offered brightly.

I downed the shot quickly, ...

... then coughed up _FIRE!_

My whole body caught flame, and my face was burning up as I sputtered the liquid back up my throat, grating as it left, and out my mouth.

"That's a _liqueur_ ," her voice was flat, both scolding and disapproving at the same time. "It's meant to be sipped, not downed in one go."

 _"Ya don' say?"_ I wheezed, rocking as I grasped my midsection, trying to hold myself together.

A sound of liquid decanted into a glass. "Here," she said curtly, handing me the water glass. I sniffed at it suspiciously first - _"Oh, please!"_ she _tsk_ ed, displeased with my mistrust – then I drank deeply when I had confirmed for myself it was water.

The other drink, the 'liqueur,' was pure fire going down my throat, but I could tell it wasn't the usual cheap-stuff we served at the bar, a shot of whiskey the patrons downed quickly and chased down with a beer. No, this stuff was different. She was right: it was a thick, rich syrup, be-like. It was like a medicine, but not like a medicine at all. It clung to my throat and I could feel it insidiously seeping into my neck and sneaking up to heat my cheeks.

Ooh, this was bad stuff! Bad, bad stuff, indeed! I felt it starting to worm its way into my mind, dulling my senses and muddling my thoughts.

Exactly what I didn't need it to do to me.

I took another long draw from my glass of water, emptying it.

"Hm," she said, taking the water glass from me. "Now, let's try again, shall we?"

"Uh, okay?" I said.

"Hm," she sniffed, disapprovingly.

"Sorry!" I winced, forgetting she didn't like the word 'okay.'

"Don't be," she tutted.

"Uh, what?" I blinked, surprised.

"Don't be sorry," she said. "Be nothing less than yourself, and be nothing less than perfect."

 _Whoa._ I sat there, stunned for a moment, taking in what she said.

I just couldn't believe it. Nobody talked like that. Nobody.

"Okay," I said, then winced at the word, but pressed forward. "You ain't from around here, are you."

A pause, a considered breath, then, quietly. "No," she said, "I _'ain't'_ from around here."

Her sarcasm? Biting.

I ignored it.

"I thought so," I said a bit more confidently, the world righting itself for the first time in a while for me.

"Oh, really?" she asked, disinterestedly, then, ignoring my confidence in return, she ordered: "Drink up."

I felt the shot-glass in my hand, heavier now, not with more liquid, but because my muscles were starting to be unresponsive, sluggish. And that was just with the first shot.

"Uh, ..." I took a careful sip and let it sit in my mouth.

It evaporated in my mouth and went straight to my brain.

Shit, I'm so screwed! If this kept up, I'd be so far gone, she'd do anything she'd want to me and I just wouldn't care.

Was this what taking laudanum felt like? No, wait! Did she spike the drink with laudanum? What did laudanum taste like? This drink was honeyed, with a taste of licorice, but I don't know what laudanum was like, having never been seduced by that demon.

My heart was beating in my chest: _thump-thump-thump,_ scared of what might be in this drink and what it might be doing to me. She could have poisoned it and how would I know? She was saying 'drink up,' but was she drinking? I couldn't tell. She poured herself a shot, but that's all I knew.

The only way out of this trap was ... forward.

I carefully put the shot glass on the end-table, feeling the water glass next to it.

"Did you want to ...?" I offered.

"Want to ...?" she prompted, not taking the bait.

 _Damn her!_ I thought angrily. _Why the hell does she have to be coy?_

"... cuddle?" I finished weakly.

I wasn't being circumspect because I was shy, nor because I might have any scruples. Let's face it: she was here to fuck me, I was here to be fucked.

But.

Me, coming right out and saying it ...? If she were treating this as a business transaction and me as a commodity, she could've just thrown me on the bed and humped away or however a woman fucked a woman. Whatever.

But the fact that she didn't. The fact that she bought a whole bottle of rare liqueur, and that she was talking with me, watching me, instead of just jumping my bones?

Something was up. If I just came right out and said, 'Okay, bitch, fuck away, I ain't got all night...'

Mood-killer? Not for the sirs, but they only gave one fuck and they were done and on their way back home through the cold, one for the road to keep them warm. With a sir, I didn't have to say, 'let's fuck,' because their trou would hit the floor before I would be able even to get the words out.

This one wasn't one of the sirs, and I couldn't say this to her. My throat closed around itself, not letting me say the words that would probably kill me, or, worse, piss her off so much she'd up and leave after giving madame a piece of her mind about me.

"Hm," she said slowly. "'Cuddle'."

God, I hate her so much. There had to be some law against this kind of torture.

"Actually," she said, pretending to think things over, but her hesitancy was a thin veneer over the confidence in how she played this situation... how she played me. "I'd like to finish my drink first then do – you know? – what women do before we hop in the _'sack.'"_

I gulped. "What is that?" I asked, my voice quavering.

"What is what?"

I wanted to scream in frustration. She was giving me absolutely nothing to work with.

I took a calming breath. "What do women do?"

"Eheh," she laughed softly, without humor. "We talk and we drink. We get to know each other, like civilized creatures."

"Oh," I said. "Um, okay. Is it okay if you finish your drink as we talk, 'cause if I drink the rest of this ... uh, _'liqueur,'_ I won't be able to do much of anything at all."

"No, it's not _'okay'_ to be unsociable," she warned, then added: "And who said I wanted you to 'do' anything? Is this how you see this _'arrangement'?_ You _'do'_ me?"

She sounded affronted.

"Oh," I said. "Um ... I'm, ah, sorry. It's just I've ... never done this before. I mean, ... with a woman, is all."

"I see you focus on 'doing,'" she remarked, disapprovingly.

I pursed my lips, confused. "Uh, well, yeah. I mean, that's all this is, isn't it?"

"No," she said quietly.

And then from her, a cold silence.

"Okay," I said. "I'll bite. What else is there, then?"

"Twenty questions, is it, then?" she demanded. "Drink with me first, then ask your question."

"Okay," I huffed. I bit my lip, but obediently reached out to the shot-glass and took a sip. A tiny sip. I held the alcohol in my mouth and it evaporated into my very being.

I narrowed my eyes as I heard the water being decanted into the tumbler.

"Why you giving me so much water?" I demanded. "Where you expect me to hold all that water? I don' got no big bladder, you know, being a woman an' all!"

"Eheh," she laughed again lightly. "It's a magic secret."

"What is?" I demanded. I knew, somehow, that the alcohol was making me braver, maybe even brazen, which should be dangerous, I knew somehow abstractly, ... it's just I didn't care now.

She chuckled again, enjoying my crumbling inhibitions, like I'm sure she enjoyed watching everything crumble, that _bitch!_

"Hangovers are the result of dehydration. The alcohol absorbs water from your body, when you drink water you address that need before it becomes a painful reminder."

I snorted, unimpressed with her high-falutin' language. "Damn, you smart. You a doctor, or sommthin'?"

"Yes," she said softly.

I stopped in my taunting, stunned.

"You are?" I asked incredulously.

"Yes," she said, certainty clear in her voice.

"Wow," I said, truly impressed. "A women doctor."

"What's so odd about that?" she asked.

"Oh, come on!" I blurted out angrily. "Ain't never seen no women doctor." Then I added quickly: "An' don't you mind it what I said, you know what I mean!"

"I don't mind it as I do know what you mean, so I will dispute that meaning," she responded firmly, then asked: "What says women can't be doctors?"

I shook my head, and a wave of dizziness gripped me, making the blood leave my head. I felt clammy and close to puking.

"Whatever!" I said angrily, very, very carefully shaking my head in disbelief, "Well, I never! How do y'do, Doctor, uh ... what's yer name?"

"I didn't give you my name," she said. "You didn't ask it, just wanting to 'do' me and get this over with and then forget me, hm?"

I couldn't tell if she were mocking me anymore, or if she were serious in her disappointment.

But didn't I just ask her name?

"So, uh, what's your name, uh, Doctor, uh ...?"

 _Lady Doctor? Doctor Lady? Missus Lady Doctor person?_ How do you address a women doctor?

"Drink first," she commanded.

I sighed, reached out and took another small sip.

I nearly missed the table, putting the shot glass down again. My arms felt rubbery and weak.

"So, ..." I said.

"Water," she ordered.

I drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly.

The water went down and down and down, it tasted _so. damn. good._ after that liqueur. It was like a jolt to my body and cleared my head, just a touch.

Maybe she was right. Maybe it was magic-water.

"So, ..." I said, after I put the glass down, and waited a beat for her to interrupt me.

She didn't. Shocker.

"So," I said again, "what's your name, Miss, uh, ... doctor?"

"The proper form in an introduction is to give your name first," I was primly informed.

 _The proper form._

Definitely not from around here.

The 'proper form' around here first of all: wasn't, and second of all, men settled things like men, and women just had to take it. Men were gallant (not to me), when they felt like it, when they weren't bone-tired, and angry, and desperate, so ...

Okay, so men were never gallant, and sometimes they were mean. Sometimes they were vicious. Most times they were just too tired and too beaten down to care to be anything other than that.

That was the 'proper form' around here.

So, what? Was Doctor Miss the 'man' here?

Maybe best just to go with that. Nothing else made sense tonight, anyhow.

"My name is Lisa," I said simply.

But suddenly I felt ... sad, like I was giving something away. Like I was giving away the only thing I had. The men didn't care what my name was. I was just the blind whore. Why did she care?

"Lisa ... as in 'Elizabeth'?" she asked carefully.

"No, ma'am," I said. "Just 'Lisa.'"

 _"Not 'ma'am'! It's 'Miss,'"_ she corrected sharply.

"Sorry," I said. "Miss."

So, ... not married, then. Virgin?

Huh. Maybe that's why this run-around instead of getting right to it.

"Good," she said. Whatever that meant. "Your family name?"

"I dunno," I said.

"You don't know?" she asked, surprised.

"No, ma' ... Miss."

"How could you not know your family name?" she demanded.

I shrugged. "Never knew my father. He died 'for I could remember. My mother ..." I shrugged again. "She died here. I was five."

"Your mother was a whore?" she said.

"NO!" My face was ashen. "I mean ... not when I was born. She was married and all. My dad was a miner. He died. What could she do? Nothin'! Who cared? Nobody! Everybody's struggling! So ... so ... so we just got ... we just ..."

I shrugged and drew in a ragged breath and felt the tears a-comin' again. Why. I thought I was done with this. I thought it was dead in the past.

I lashed out at the source of my pain: "It's the same story everywhere! Who cares? _Nobody!_ Why do you?"

I hated her. I don't care is she was a Very Important Person. She could tell madame I pissed in her drink now for all I cared. Fuck me. That way madame'd kill me and I wouldn't have to talk to this bitch any more. Fuck her and her fucking superior attitude.

"I will find out what your family name is," she said, surprising me.

First non-judgmental statement from her tonight, I reckon.

"Don't!" I said.

"Hm?"

"I don't wanna know what my family name is. I ain't got no family to name. They're dead and gone 'fore I can remember. And I ain't got no family to look forward to." Then I laughed bitterly. "What? Somebody gonna ride in on a white horse, a knight to rescue _me_? A blind whore?"

I shook my head. "I ain't nothing. You said. Jus' waiting for my time to come is all. Jus' ..."

I stopped and swallowed hard.

Shit. A tear was forming in the corner of my eye, and blinking wasn't helping. I sniffled angrily at myself, wiped the tear away with the sleeve of my dress, not caring if she saw me in my shame or not. Who cares? She didn't.

"So that is what you are waiting for? Your time to die?" she asked.

I sniffled loudly.

"I can give that to you. Right now. Do you want this?" she asked seriously.

I sniffled again. "No," I said bitterly.

"Why not?" she asked.

"Dunno." I said.

"Liar," she said.

"I ain't no liar!" I hissed back fiercely.

"I didn't say you were lying to me," she retorted mildly.

"What the _fuck_ do you think I care about _you!"_ I shouted.

"Language," she said softly.

A knock at the door. "Is everything okay, Ms. Hale?"

Madame.

Oh, fuck me. It was quiet outside. Fuck. I had lost track of everything fighting with this She, and now it was quiet outside which means everybody was a-listening on in.

Fuck me. It's not like my life wasn't hard enough already. Now I got on madame's shit-list and every girl in the Lonesome Dove would know every little detail of the goings-on in here, _and_ relate back with glee every juicy detail of my fuck-ups to me that earned me madame's very special attentions, and then what?

How do you off an uppity whore? You don't. You just beat the shit out of them – _literally_ – until they ain't uppity no more. When they broke after so many beatings, they just up and killed themselves. Always happens that way eventually. So why mess with the formula that just works?

Silently, the door opened. I could tell by madame's gasp and her rocking back on her heals.

"Everything is just fine," She who was 'Ms. Hale' said. "We're just having a heart-to-heart chat, thank you."

"Anything I can get you you need?" Madame asked her, but her voice carried to me with a very clear implication that if I wasn't what she needed, I could be very easily replaced.

"Yes," Ms. Hale said. "Since our conversation is of an intimate nature, I'd like uninterrupted time with my Lisa, please, and privacy would be nice, don't you think?"

Implications were just being passes all around tonight, weren't they?

But _'my Lisa'?_ Can't say I like the sound of that. Her's for this hour, tops, but that's it, thanks.

"Ain't your'n," I muttered sourly under my breath.

Madame's voice whipped at me: "What did you say?"

I winced. Apparently not under-my-breath enough, I guess.

Ms. Hale chuckled lightly. "Feisty one," she remarked. "I _like_ that," she added warmly.

"Ah, ..." Madame said hesitant again, taken aback. "... Good."

"Yes," Ms. Hale said. "Thank you for checking in on us. Good night."

The door closed. Firmly.

Beyond the door was silence.

In the room was silence.

Then I heard madame walk away. "DON'T YOU GIRLS HAVE SOMMTHIN' TO CLEAN OR SOMETHING OR BY GOD, DO YOU WANT A TASTE OF THE LASH?"

A flurry of activity moving away from the door.

Ms. Hale chuckled lightly, "Well," she said easily, like she was used to sitting on top of the world watching everyone scurry around in fear beneath her.

"Well," I shot back angrily, grabbed the shot glass and emptied it with one angry pull, just to spite her.

 _Ouch!_ Two hot tears of pain raced down my cheeks as the alcohol hit me hard and burned inside me, a hot, angry flame, setting my belly afire, and hurting my head and arms with numbness. Don't think I could trust my legs now, neither.

Ms. Hale _tsk_ ed. I heard her refill the tumbler with water. She took the shot glass from my nerveless fingers and replaced it with the water glass.

"Water," she said. "Drink up. Are you capable of doing that on your own? Or do you need me to nurse you?"

 _"Pfft, please,"_ I growled angrily, but I was careful bringing the full glass of water to my lips, and rather pleased that it didn't spill all over me as I drank. I took gulp after gulp after gulp, and was grateful for the cool contrast of the water to the numbness I felt creeping over me as the alcohol wormed its control over me.

Fuck.

I hate being drunk. I hate losing control of myself. It's a terrifying feeling, not exhilarating at all. Don' know why'n anybody would want to feel like this.

I moved to put the glass back on the end table, but it was pulled from my hand.

"I've got it," Ms. Hale said and I heard her refill the glass.

"Uh," I said, "No, thankye, I'm fit to burst."

"Ah," she remarked.

"Actually, ..." I turned my head away.

"Let me guess," she prompted.

"I'm sorry," I whispered crestfallen.

"If you have to go, you have to go," she remarked, unconcerned. "No need to apologize for a trip to the wc."

"Yeah, but that's between sirs ... I mean customers, Miss, not durin' as you're payin' and all, and you only have an hour max, you know."

"Oh, I do?"

She swept me off the bed into her arms and carried me way too fast toward the door.

"Put me down! Put me down, now!" I hissed hurriedly.

"No worries," she said easily. "You'd be surprised how often I have found myself doing this."

"I don' care how often you do this for your patients, Doctor Miss Hale," I said vehemently, saying her name, though. "You ain't gunna be doing it for me. You put me down right now! Please!"

We stopped. "I don't do this for my patients," she corrected me. "What makes it important that I don't do this for you? Do you trust your ability to walk?"

"Do I trust my ...? That don' matter! I _have_ to!" I said.

She paused. "You ... 'have to'?"

"Yes!" I said desperately.

We waited by the door.

"Look!" I said, "If the other girls see you a-carryin' me, I won't hear the end of it, ever! May as well slit my own throat."

"Ah," she said. "Your pride is at stake."

 _"YES!"_ I hissed quietly.

"Because you're a strong, independent woman who can take care of herself, is that it? And who doesn't need anybody's help?" she pressed.

"Yes, okay? Yes, for God's sake!" I said.

I didn't know why it had to be spelled out like this.

"All right, then." She set me now, surprising me by just agreeing, and not making a big deal about it, like I was afraid she would.

But then my legs, that I didn't trust, turned to rubber. I started to slump, right where I was standing.

Ms. Hale caught me and held me up.

"Easy there, sailor!" she remarked blithely.

"Whoa!" was all I could say back, though. I was too busy trying to keep the room from spinning in circles around me.

You ever get so drunk the world started spinning in circles around you? Yeah? Now, when you do that, shut your eyes and try to make walking, or anything, work while you're feeling that.

That's about how I felt.

"Have you regained your balance?" she asked.

"I ..." I gulped, thinking: _don't throw up!_ "Yeah, I think so."

She let me go, carefully. "You are a light-weight!" she remarked smugly, rubbing salt into the wounds.

"I _told_ you that," I hissed, "but you _didn't listen!"_

"I'm not paying for your bad attitude," she noted, displeased.

"No, y'arn't! You're paying for my _time!"_ I snapped back. "You'd have to pay _a lot_ extra for my attitude!"

Ms. Hale was quiet for a moment.

 _Ha!_ That got to her!

"I actually did pay a considerable sum extra," she stated reproachfully.

"Oh," I said, my anger deflated, reminded of madame's angry warning that I'd _better_ make everything just wonderful for this one. "Yeah, you probably did. Sorry," I added lamely.

"Because 'sorry' makes everything better?" she demanded snidely.

"Does it?" I asked humbly.

 _"Eheh,"_ she laughed lightly. "Ask me that a week ago and I would've answered 'no,' with absolute certainty, but now ..."

Her voice trailed off.

"But now?" I asked, truly curious.

"Now, I'm not so sure anymore."

"About 'sorry'?" I clarified.

"About ... everything," she said finally.

That was the first time I heard uncertainty in her voice.

A realization hit me like a freight train. "That's what you're here for: you're lookin' for answers!"

"Well," she said, easy again, back in her element, "for one answer, anyway."

I thought about that. "That you, um, like girls?"

 _"Eheh,"_ she laughed wickedly, and somehow her laughter made my insides feel funny. I was afraid she was starting to like _me!_ That would be bad, because I sure as shootin' didn't like _her!_ "But I thought you had to use the water closet."

"Yeah," I said, distracted.

"Then let's go."

She grabbed my arm, businesslike, and tugged me toward the door.

"Uh, no," I said. "I hold your arm. You don't hold mine."

"Oh," she said, taken aback, letting me go. "I didn't know that."

"Now you do," I said, grabbing onto her arm.

It was surprisingly solid for a rich-bitch, not at all flabby, as I expected for someone who had everything done for her, being confined and inactive. But no, this was a frontier-woman's arm, not Town. But her talk was Town, not frontier.

Nothing about her made sense.

"The privy is ..." I began.

"I know where it is," she said, and guided me along, out the room, through the hallway, toward the back.

Not that I needed the guidance, mind you, but I was glad for the support.

Oh, and I'm blind, not deaf. I could hear the other girls stopping what they were doing to stare, and to whisper about me. It was embarrassing as hell! And I was half-a-mind to stop and call them on their judgments of me.

But I had a more pressing need that needed attending to.

Privy. Or 'wc' as Dr. Ms. Hale called it.

"Electric lighting," she remarked.

"This is 1934," I told her, peeved. "We don't live in the Dark Ages, you know!"

"So I've been informed," she said, but there was something in her voice that I didn't get: mocking? or self-mocking? or was it ... bitter?

Eh. I didn't have time for this. I lifted my dress, dropped my knickers and sat. Ms. Hale got an eye-full, I'm sure, but, hey, if she wants to come into the privy with me, that's her business.

I don't know. Was she scared to face the other girls in stony silence? I don't think so. She didn't seem the type to be easily phased. Was she lonely and be a-missing my company?

I don't know. I'd like to say, 'I don't think so' to that, too, but I had a sneaking suspicion that maybe that was it, and that realization didn't sit well with me.

"So," I pushed into the silence. _"'Ms. Hale,'_ you got a first name, or you wanna keep it all formal-like?"

"Hm," she said.

Then she was right on me! She stood over me, but she cradled my head in her arm, like a side-hug, but like ... so not. O, so not.

I swallowed. I thanked God I could, because those solid arms of hers? It felt like she could snap my head straight off, if she were of a mind to do so.

"Do _you_ want to keep it like that?" she demanded. "Formal? Professional, or ..."

She leaned down and whispered into my ear. "Did you want a more ... _intimate_ acquaintance?"

 _"Gluck!"_ I said, choking on surprise, if not her arm. "Uh, I don't think we can get any more, um, _'intimate'_ that what you're payin' for, Miss."

"Oh, really?" she asked mockingly. "So you open yourself to the gentlemen that come calling every night?"

 _So many ways to answer that one,_ I thought to myself snidely.

"Open myself?" I said. "You bet. Gentlemen? Well, they ain't so gentle, and they ain't so gentlemanly, if you take my meaning."

She let me go. "I do," she said from across the privy. "But by 'open yourself,' I did not mean spread your legs apart, I was referring to your heart."

"Ha, ha!" I laughed. "That's funny. 'Heart'? I ain't got none no more, miss!"

Ms. Hale said nothing for a while, then all she said was: "Hm."

 _Now who's not opening her heart?_ I thought darkly in her direction.

Eventually she accused: "You didn't answer my question."

"Yes, I did," I said. "You said did I open up to the sirs, and yup, I do. It's in my contract, see, so it ain't like I have a choice in the matter."

"We all have choices," she countered.

"You do, maybe, miss," I said. "I don't."

"Are you going to urinate, or do you prefer to continue expounding on your philosophy here?" She added a sour: "Which I am not paying for, by the bye."

I rolled my eyes, then resting my head in my hands, blocked out Ms. Urinate, bore down, and took care of business.

There was a lot of water in me, and that _liqueur,_ too.

...

 _"Liiiiiiiii-saaaaaah,"_ a voice came swimming, sing-song, out of the darkness.

"Uh," I grunted.

 _"Lisa,"_ the voice sang – it was a beautiful voice, like roses and rainbows – _"wake up, little one!"_

"I _ain't_ little!" I mumbled, cotton in my mouth. "'m taller'n most of the girls!" I groused.

"Taller than me?" the voice teased.

I was so disoriented. "I don't know ..." I felt around me. I was in a bed. My bed? "Where am I?"

I heard water being poured into the tumbler. "You're back in your room. You fell asleep on the commode, so I brought you back here."

"Uh, ..." I sat up groggily, but I was thinking: _I'm in trouble._ "Uh, you're ... uh, that crazy woman doctor, right?"

"Yes," she said, handing me the glass full of water.

I drank greedily, trying at the same time to clear the cobwebs from my head. This seemed like a monumental task, as I _did_ have a hangover. Just goes to show what Dr. Whoever knew: a big-old pile of nothing!

"Uh, ..." I said. "I don't remember comin' back here, uh ... did you, um, carry me back here?" _in front of everybody, please, o, please say 'no.'_

"Just so," she replied.

I took that as a _yes,_ and covered my shame by drinking more. "Uh, ... how long have I been ... uh, asleep?" I asked carefully.

"A few hours," she said, "It is now 3:14 am."

 _"'A few hours'?"_ I screeched. "Oh, shit! Oh, shit! Oh, shit! Oh, maaaaan! I am so fucked! Oh, God d-..."

"Language, please," she interrupted crisply, displeasure coloring her voice.

"Language?" I whined. "Language nothin'! Madame's gonna kill me! Madame's ... wait." I said, pausing. "Why hasn't madame killed me?"

"Well, ..." she began.

"Wait," I said, interrupting her. "Why are you still here? I mean, did we ... I mean, if we did or if we didn't, I'm sorry, but you have to go, see, and ... what time did you say it was?"

"Is your plan to keep asking questions even before I answer any of your prior ones?" she asked mildly.

"What time is it?" I demanded, ignoring her teasing. I didn't have time for that!

"3:14 am," she said.

I put my head in my hands. "3:14? Everybody's gone now!" I wailed. "I'm so God-damn fucked! Oh, God damn it!"

And then...

I can't believe it. I was actually crying! Bitter tears of anger and frustration rolled down my cheeks. I have only so much time each night to make so much money and all the time is gone, and here I am, no money hardly for tonight, and no excuses, neither!

What was it? Three sirs before her? That's six whole dollars! I shook my head. Six dollars, when the bare minimum was ten dollars.

I sobbed into my hands. I didn't have four dollars that I could spare to make up the difference! All my money went to madame, and any I saved for myself, the pittance that it was went for when I had an emergency. Emergencies happened all too often for me. My savings? What little I had saved up was all gone.

All gone!

"Oh, God!" I cried. "Oh, God!"

Ms. Hale sat next to me and put her arms around me. "I think ..." she said slowly, "things may not quite as bad as you're making them out to be."

"Huh?" I said, befuddled, wallowing in misery. I sniffled hard, trying to collect myself. "Why are you still here?"

"Because I paid for the whole night with you," she said.

"Huh? What?" I said.

"Because," she stated slowly, like she were speaking to a child, "I paid the whole night for you."

"Ha, ha," I said, getting it this time. "Funny."

"You're not laughing," she observed.

"Because this isn't a joke!" I shouted. _"God!"_ I said.

"You don't believe me," she said.

"Do you think I was born yesterday?" I demanded. "The whole night? For me? Right! Beside," I spat bitterly, "it don't matter what I believe! All that matter is what madame is gonna do with me this morning, bright and early."

"What time?" she asked.

"What?" I said, snapped out of my reverie ... nightmare, more like.

"What time?" she asked again.

I shot daggers her way. "What does it matter to you?" I pressed forward before she could answer. "We have to be at the breakfast table by 7 am, sharp. Anybody who's late better have a reason or they get a tanning. Chores start at 8 am, but I'll get my dressing down at, no, before breakfast, I'm sure."

"Hm," she remarked. "I'll be long gone by then."

 _Otherwise she'd do what?_ I thought bitterly. _Plead my case before madame?_

"Yeah," I said despondently, but I thought to myself: _Good!_

Her, being there? That would only make a bad situation worse!

"Tell you what," she offered, "this is not your problem: it's mine. Let me handle this issue. You just sleep on it and let tomorrow bring what tomorrow brings."

I put my head into my hands.

 _"Easy for you to say!"_ I whispered into my hands, softer than my heart pounding away in my chest.

"Yes, it is," she said.

I sighed noisily. _Fucking saddest-bitch, inside my fucking head._

"Is worrying about it now going to change to the slightest degree what will happen tomorrow?" she asked in her God-damn reasonable tone of voice.

"No!" I bit off angrily.

"Then, ..." she said, "why worry?"

I shook my head. I had nothing to say to her. I could say a bunch of things, but what would be the point? I was as good as dead anyway. Why waste my breath on her?

"Good," she said, thinking she convinced me. "Let's get you ready for bed."

I heard a chifforobe drawer opening.

"This is your sleepwear? A threadbare slip?" she asked.

Her voice was neutral, but I hear it in the tone of her voice, the disapproval.

"Yeah," I said. I didn't have the widest selection of clothes. You got what you got given to you, and after years of washing ... so, yeah, I had what I had, and it kept me warm at night.

"Well," she said, not happy with my response. "This will have to do for tonight."

Her arm touched my shoulder, and I screamed, a little, in my mouth. She ignored this and guided me to a standing position. I started to unbutton my dress.

Her hand grasped mine in a cold, vise-like grip. "No," she said. "I paid for you tonight. You are _mine._ I dress you, and I undress you. I take you from this room. I put you to bed. You do _nothing_ unless I will it so. Do you understand me?"

I tried to regain control my hand. I tugged a little bit against her grip.

She didn't move, and nor did my hand.

My heart was in my throat. I wanted to run: I felt trapped.

But I had nowhere to run.

I gulped. "Yes," I whispered, "I understand."

 _"What_ do you understand?" she snarled softly. She tightened her grip on my hand, just every-so-slightly.

Just enough to let me know that I wouldn't be getting my hand back.

"Um," I said. "You, um, ... dress me and undress me and ..." I wracked my brain to say back to her what she said to me, "uh, ... put me to bed, ... and stuff."

I winced as her grip tightened down on my hand.

"'Stuff,'" she whispered menacingly.

"Ow?" I whimpered.

"You will let me undress you?" she confirmed.

"Yes," I said.

She moved my hand back down to my side. "Be still," she commanded.

I nodded quickly.

She let my hand go.

Running from her? That was one of the hardest things for me _not_ to do right now.

A feather touch of her fingertips as she quickly unbuttoned my dress. I blushed as knocked the dress of my shoulders and it slid down my sides, pooling at my feet.

She unhooked my brassiere, then two quick, efficient sweeping moves of her hands and bra and panties joined my dress on the floor.

I stood before her, naked, my body exposed to her, but, worse than that, I felt, was my soul was burning, blazing, pried open to her eyes judging me.

She stepped into my stance, her chin brushing against my shoulder. She was taller than me, which was odd for a girl. I'm pretty tall.

The material on her dress was fine. Not cotton. Smooth, like satin. Like something I'd never get to wear.

Her arms encircled me, molding me into her.

I was breathing shallow breaths.

This was the moment. I could feel it. I was ... scared. I felt like a God-damn fool, scared, shy, not knowing what to do. I felt virginal, and I hated this feeling: I felt like a fool.

"Your arms," she commanded, whispering into my ear. "Embrace me."

I brought my arms up and pulled her into me, as she pulled me into her.

She had boobs. I didn't. I had bug-bites.

But somehow, we fit together, like two pieces of a puzzle.

"Do you know that you are beautiful?" she asked.

I snorted, surprise covering my shame and a sudden welling up of an infinite sadness that overtook me for no reason I could explain.

"No," I said.

"Because no one tells you this," she stated.

"Yes," I said sadly.

They all just fucked me and forgot me. The most I got out of most of the sirs was "Shit!" or "Fuck!" when they came in me, and that was me: a hole they fucked.

"This changes tonight," she said, "and every night for the rest of your life. You are beautiful."

"B-because you say so," I hiccoughed, sadness welling up in my chest so hard that I felt myself being torn apart, from the inside out.

"No, because you do," she said.

"What?" I asked, stupid in my confusion.

"Tell me you are beautiful," Ms. Hale said.

I sniffled. "I am beautiful?" I said.

Was this what is was to be fucked by a woman? If it was, then I way preferred a sir. A man fucked you and he was done.

This Ms. Hale fucked my mind, and I couldn't get her out of my head.

"Yes," she said, "now tell yourself that."

"I-I ..." I gasped.

Then I burst into tears, sobbing into her shoulder.

I thought her whisper something to herself. She said something like: 'always a project'?

But I didn't know what she meant.

She held me as I cried.

...

I was sniffling as she pulled my night shift over my head.

I couldn't help it. I barked out a bitter laugh.

"Ha, ha," she said dryly. "And the joke is...?"

"M-most th-the sirs just toss me on-on the bed and pull up my dress w-when they f-fuck me, b-but you undressed me, n-n-and now you're dressing me for bed? A-a-and, ..." I sobbed, "and you didn't even f-fuck me ... y-yet, and-and your holdin' me, and ..."

I was going to lose it again. How did she make me hurt so bad?

"Yes," was all she said, but the depth of the 'yes' in her voice: the pain there that she didn't say...

It was killing me.

Was this how she would kill me? She looked into my eyes, and saw my soul, so I would have to see, for the first time in my life, and look right into her soul?

She pulled me down onto the bed and covered me ... covered us with the blanket. She pulled my body into hers, her arms encircling me.

"Mine," she growled possessively.

And I said ...

... I whispered into my private, private self: _I wish._

That's what I whispered.

To belong to somebody, to something, to ... anything. To give myself over to this thing, and not have to face the unrelenting days alone, all by myself, and just have to ... keep going ...

I wish I was somebody's.

But I knew different.

I whispered to her: "Okay."

And I thought bitterly, again, just to myself: _whatever._

"No," she said, not accepting my outward submission to her at all: _"Say_ it."

I breathed slow, even, quiet breaths.

"Say what?" I said softly.

"You are _mine,"_ she said. _"Say_ it."

I drew a shuddering breath. "Yours." I said softly.

And again, I wished it were true.

"Eheh," she whispered a soft, cruel laugh in my ear. It was like she could read my thoughts as if they were words on a page for a person who had eyes to see words, ... or the sky, ... or the sun. And I hated her for her confidence. And I hated everybody for their sight.

And I hated myself, ... for my hate.

"Listen to me," she said, a soft wind whispering into the turmoil of my thoughts. "I will return tomorrow night. You are _not_ to entertain anyone other than me in the interim, for I will know, and I will _not_ be pleased. Do you understand me?"

"I ..." I began, but then it struck me, what she said: she would 'return.'

"... you're leaving now?" I asked. I can't believe how badly that hurt. Her leaving me. Just like all the sirs. I thought she might've been different, you know? But no, she was just like all the rest, after all.

I can't believe how much that hurt: that obvious fact.

Silence from her.

"Why?" I said.

She was quiet for a moment, then she gripped me tightly into her, and then more tightly, then even more.

"Do you feel this?" she asked.

I could barely breathe.

"I..." I gasped.

"Stop." she said. "Wait before you answer."

I waited.

"Do you feel it?" she demanded again.

I waited. _Do you feel this?_ She asked. And I felt her arms around me, holding me into her so tightly in her vise-like grip that I could barely gasp for breath, ...

But then I felt it.

Her hand was on my breast, holding me into her, and I felt my heart banging against her hand, almost, it seemed, each beat a desperate plea to go on beating, just one more heartbeat, just one more breath, just one more moment of life.

"Yes," my voice came out in a whispered hiss of air.

"Yes," she echoed. _"This,"_ she said, and squeezed my tiny breast fitted into her hand. "My heart, my very reason for being, is beating away in a little, tiny cabin in this desolate part of this God-forsaken wilderness, waiting for me to return to her. My why."

She was quiet.

"So _this?_ this, right here, _"_ she said, "this heart of yours beating away in your chest that you so proudly proclaimed you do not have, _this_ you make keep locked away from the men who call upon your favors and from me who claims you to myself, you make keep _this_ all to yourself, for I have mine waiting, hoping, praying for _me,_ the most wretched, vile, evil creature God has ever cursed to cause to be in existence, and this heart of mine, waiting for my return? It is a frail thing, a poor thing, a weak little thing, but it is for me, for _me, alone,_ and that is why I leave you to return ... to home, to my heart."

My tears were hitting the pillow: _plop, plop, plop_ as she spoke.

I was befuddled by my tears. No. I was befuddled by her words. They couldn't be real. What she was talking about was Love.

And that didn't exist.

It couldn't.

"Don't ... go," I begged.

And I bit my lip, hating my words, my weak words, already knowing her answer.

I knew what I was; I knew what she was.

And, even knowing this, I still let her get under my skin.

 _Fucking amateur!_ I screamed the accusation to myself, because I felt it: the stab of hope.

Hope'll fucking kill you. It always does.

I felt her lips, resting on the side of my face, turn up into a smile. "Ohhhh, Lisa," she sang softly.

No one had ever said that to me since Mama di-...

No.

No one had ever said that to me.

No one.

And that killed me, I sobbed a desperate, despairing wail, and I cried and cried as she held me.

And she sang a sad, consoling, comforting little lullaby: "Ohhh, Lisa," over and over and over as she held me, o, so tightly, in her arms.

My name is Lisa.

It's all I have. It had always been enough.

Until tonight.

* * *

 **A/N:** The first night.


	4. La La Land

**Chapter summary:** So she came, she left.

I don't mean she ... 'came'-came. I meant she, ... oh, _never mind!_

Anyway, back to normal for me.

Yeah. Right.

* * *

"Get up. Get up. Get up. Lisa, get up."

I woke. Bam. Just like that.

I blinked the crustiness out of my eyes and felt myself, checking myself to see if I were still in that terrible, terrible dream.

It had to be a dream, didn't it?

I felt around the bed.

Nothing.

No remnant of _Her._

Maybe it was just a dream. I couldn't tell. I couldn't think much around the throbbing of my head. Headache. Terrible headache, and my throat was sore-parched!

There was somebody in the room, obviously, as well. I could smell her. I could hear her breathing.

"Hey, Sarah," I said, stalling, trying to orient myself.

"You sure you blind?" Sarah asked.

I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. "Last I checked, yeah," I said, yawning. "What time is it?"

I couldn't place the day. It was peaceful and quiet, which sat odd with me.

"It's ten o'clock," Sarah said.

"It's ..." I sat up in the bed, suddenly, jolted by the realization. "Wait. It's _what?"_

Sarah chuckled. "Uh, huh. You heard me. And guess who's in _so_ much trouble right now?"

My head hit the pillow hard. I brought my hands up and covered my face. I uttered a quiet, "Fuck."

"Yep," Sarah added helpfully. "You guessed it. You're fucked."

"Sarah," I rasped angrily, "can you, like, tell me something good just – oh, I don't know – once in a blue moon, for God's sakes?"

"Huh," Sarah mulled. "Lessee. You're a whore. You're up three hours late, meaning you missed breakfast. You didn't do your morning chores, and Madame is looking for you. Good news like that?"

"Fuck," I groaned, "my head hurts like hell!"

I heard the wood shift as Sarah got up from the chair.

"Quite the party," she remarked casually by my end table. I heard her pick up that cursed bottle. "'Dram-...boo-ee'?" she said, "what's that?"

"Ugh," I grumbled, "Don' wanna talk about it."

I here the _ptt_ of the cork being removed from the bottle, then I heard Sarah lift the bottle and a very loud sniffing from her.

"D'mn!" she uttered, "It smells like money!"

It wasn't that Sarah was being loud on purpose, it was that Sarah was just Sarah. Anybody next to that crazy doctor bitch would sound loud. It wasn't Sarah's fault, even though her voice was grating into me like nails on the chalkboard.

That, and I had a splitting headache.

"So, what was it like?" she asked, restopping the bottle.

"What was what like?" I muttered, annoyed.

What was Sarah doing in my room? Shouldn't she be down at the bar already? She was gonna catch hell from Ned, and that was for sure!

Sarah _tsk_ ed. "Oh, please! You know! Sleeping with a woman! What was that like, caving in to that unnatural shit? What did you do? How is it done? I mean ... it's not like she had a dick and could fuck you or anything like that, so what did she make you do? Did you have to ..."

"Sarah," I hissed, cutting her off. "I wouldn't know, okay?"

"What? Huh?" Sarah asked, surprised, "but didn't you two fuck?"

"No," I responded tightly, annoyed at her. "We did what 'civilized' girls do."

"Which is what?" Sarah asked.

I sighed and covered my eyes with my arm. Not to keep the light out, mind, because my dead eyes saw nothing. They never did. I covered my face with my arm because somehow it kept the throbbing headache just slightly at bay.

"They 'get to know each other,' Sarah," I said. "And they talk."

"Oh," she said, seeming to get it. "And _then_ they fuck, right?"

"Apparently not," I grated out, tiredly.

I don't know why I was exhausted: I got more sleep than I usually do, which is the one plus out of this whole terrible deal. On balance ... _nah!_ My life still sucked, and it looked like, with Madame waiting on me to get my sad, little ass out of bed, it was only going to get worse!

"Bullshit!" Sarah said. "Ms. High-and-Mighty blew a whole night's wad just to ... _talk_ ... and with _you?"_

I shrugged, done with this conversation.

"Fine!" Sarah said. "Look, if you wanted to be a bitch this morning, why not just come right out and say it?" She didn't even pause. "Oh, yeah, that's right, because you're _always_ a little bitch _every_ morning, ain't you! No, fuck it. Every _morning?_ I meant to say every _day._ Bitch!"

Okay. I took the bait.

I sat up slowly, careful of my aching head, and swung my legs out of the covers and over the side of the bed.

"Sarah," I said. "Ain't you gotta be waitin' tables downstairs at the bar? Or, in other words, ain't you got nothin' better to do than get bitch-slapped by me ... _again_ , 'cuz ..."

"Ha, ha," Sarah interrupted drily. "Cause the last time you thought you got the better'n me was – what? – in your fucking dreams? Anyway, Madame told me to go check up on you, make sure you're not dead and stuff."

"Well, yay!" I said. "Good girl. You done your job. As you can see: I'm not dead. You want a pat on the head?"

Sarah chuckled. "I don't know, Lisa. I'm not so sure about you not being dead. You look like hell."

I stretched. I felt like hell, too.

Hell if I were going to tell her that, though.

I reached to the end table, grabbing the glass of water and downed it slowly, thinking idly about chucking the heavy glass at Sarah's face. I knew I'd hit her. That wasn't the problem. The problem was how much _more_ trouble I'd be in. Did I really have nothing to lose?

I replaced the emptied glass on the table.

God! I hate having to be the mature one here.

It's all in the breath, though. You want to say something, something you know will hurt right back, something that will start a fight.

But then I take a breath to scream, or to cuss, or to hurt...

... And I hold it in, and hold it in, and hold it in, until the hurt inside me dies.

Maybe a piece of me dies with the hurt, too. I don't know. Maybe there's nothing left in me alive anymore, me holding in all this hurt, instead of letting it all out and hurting right back, like I know I want to.

But I just don't.

I sighed. "You done?" I asked Sarah.

She laughed again. "Nope," she said. "Nor'n you. Get up. Get dressed."

"Yah, yah, yah," I grumbled, too tired to check her ordering me about like this. Who the hell did this kid think she was? I was here before her – _way_ before her – and I'll be here long after she was dead'n gone, the way she was burning herself out.

This thought gave me no comfort. It was like ...

It was like I seen'm come, and I seen'm go, and only I remained. It was like I was cursed to stay here.

Forever.

I groaned as I pushed myself up out of bed and staggered to the chifforobe. It wasn't only my head that hurt, but my muscles and joints were achy, too.

Fucking liquor. Fucking hated the stuff.

"I ... do have some good news for you ..." Sarah offered slyly.

"What is that?" I asked, wondering why the hell wasn't she gone already.

"After you get dressed, _you_ get to talk with Margaret!" she crowed.

I put my head down on the chifforobe. Margaret, the cook, the only person, besides madame, who's been here longer than me. Madame put new girls 'too young' to turn tricks on scullery duty under her to break them. The work was hot, hard, unending, and the mistress of the kitchen even more so. I remember my days there. It was a fucking relief to have the next new girl come along after years in the kitchen under Margaret's thumb, fucking _years,_ so I could come upstairs to spread my legs and have somebody else work me over for a God-damn change.

Leastways now when I was working, I was lying down on a bed.

What did it mean I had to talk to Margaret? Did poor little Aoife up and fucking die so that now I had to wash the endless pile of dishes again? And the god-damn knives, always cutting myself, and getting whipped for my clumsiness. Fucking blind, but like anybody fucking cared.

"Fuck," I cursed sourly.

Sarah's tinkling laughter did not help my mood.

...

 _Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!_

The kitchen was hot as hell, and the cleaver weighing as much as Aoife cut through the air and sliced and jointed meat like nobody's business.

The wielder of the cleaver, though ...

Margaret was big. And loud. And Scottish.

As mean a drunk as they came.

Her arms were as broad as me or Aoife, and she probably ate as much as we weighed in a day, sampling her own baking. I don't know. Girls went missing every year or two. And the stew pot was big.

So you did not want to piss her off, like, say: skip breakfast because you were too lazy to get out of bed. Not eat her food? Be skinny, like me? That was an insult worse than spitting in Margaret's face.

Sarah was with me. Half to make sure I did what I was told, but half, I'm sure, anticipating with glee the coming carnage. What? Wash sheets, fold laundry, or serve drinks when she could be here and watch the train wreck? Why do your chores when there was so much fun to be had?

"Hey, Margie!" Sarah sang. It was _'Margret,'_ but Sarah was everybody's favorite, saying _'Mar-geeh,'_ like they were as thick as thieves.

"What the hell you two doing down here?" Margaret shouted. "Thinking you can steal something from the larder? Don't you two got work to do? Or do your hides need a tanning?"

"No, no!" Whereas any other girl would have literally screamed and ran from the kitchen, Sarah was all easy in her reply. "We'll get right to it, but _guess_ who skipped out on breakfast this morning, huh?"

Oh, fucking great!

My face went hot and I felt Margaret turn her attention to me. "I didn't sk-.."

 _"You what?"_ Margaret roared.

Margaret has two settings: loud, and, well, louder. Her shout nearly knocked me over, I swear.

"I didn't skip!" I muttered, surly.

"What? You too good for my food, is it now?" she shouted.

"No!" I said quickly. "It's just ..."

"What? You putting on airs now? 'Oh!'" her voice went squeaky in imitation of false-pride. "'I'm such a frail, delicate flower! Take this plain food back! I refuse to let it touch my lips!' Is that it?"

"No, Margaret!" I said. "I swear I ..."

 _"Well, I'll show you!"_ she bellowed.

The cleaver came down, _thwack,_ onto the cutting board, and in a trice, I was over Margaret's knee.

 _"You wanna stick around for some, too?"_ Margaret shouted over me as she rained blow after blow on my backside as I screamed for mercy.

"Oops, gotta go!" Sarah said as she scampered off, but not before seeing me get what-for, that God-damn bitch!

God, how I hate her!

Margaret didn't miss a beat. She spanked me good and hard, and with her beefy arms and my skinny ass, each blow was a thunderclap announcing the end of the world. My screamed pleas for mercy were quickly reduced to wailing through tears, but did that stop Margaret? No. She was done when her anger cooled. She was done long after I was.

She finished with me, breathing hard, as I hung over her lap, lifeless, a large swath of agony throbbing over my fanny.

"You think," Margaret wheezed, "you gonna come down to _my kitchen_ and flaunt your pride and arrogance in front of me, young lady, you got another thing comin' to you. I known you since you was a wee lass and you've _no right_ to be putting on airs. Now, say you're sorry."

"I'm sorry!" I sobbed.

I was really, _really_ sorry. Margaret didn't mess around.

She picked me up bodily from her lap, and, more impressively, picked her own massive bulk from the chair. Twisting me around, she sat me down on the chair. Hard.

"Ow!" I whined. The pain in my ass speared me, a terrible burning sensation as I sat.

Like Margaret noticed, ... or cared.

She grabbed my chin. "You listen to me and you listen to me good, young lady!" she snarled. "You eat what is put in front of you, and you be grateful for the food the Good Lord gives you, or by the Merciful Father, I will make you pine for this light reminder I just gave you, you hear me?"

I sniffled. "Yes, ma'am."

She let go of my chin. _"Aoife!"_ she called.

Scurrying. "Yes'm?" little Aoife quavered.

 _"You_ eat breakfast this morning?" Margaret bellowed.

"Please, ma'am, I did! I swear!" Aoife squeaked.

 _"Haw!"_ Margaret guffawed. "Look at you, you little liar! You're scrawnier'n Lisa! And that's saying something! How are you going to get a man to notice you if you've got no woman-flesh on you? Huh? You think you're going to hide your sorry little bum by the sinks forever, do ye?"

"Ple-"

 _"Quiet, you!"_ Margaret bellowed. "You seen what I done to little Lisa here. Do you want some, too? _Do you?"_

Aoife whimpered.

"Now, you!" Margaret said and shoved Aoife into the chair next to me. "You sit here and don't you think of moving, ye hear?"

"But the dish-...yeeeeeahhh!" Aoife squealed.

Margaret's bulk was right next to me, pressing into the little mouse that was Aoife. Margaret had, in all likelihood, grabbed Aoife by the ear. She liked doing that to me to get my attention when I was under her thumb.

 _"'But the dishes!'"_ Margaret's beefy voice was a cruel imitation of Aoife's whining. "Do you think I'm stupid, do ye?"

Aoife wisely remained silent at that, thank God!

"The _dishes_ will wait, and so will _you,_ little girl, ye hear me!"

Margaret shoved Aoife back into place and then waddled off, back toward the larder.

 _"What's she doing?"_ I whispered out of the side of my mouth.

 _"Like she tells me anything? Ever?"_ Aoife's hurt reply came right back.

Okay. I thought.

We sat in silence. It seemed like forever, but it gave me a chance to breathe again after that beating on my backside. It gave me a chance to close up into myself again and regain my composure.

If I can breathe, I can bear it. I can bear anything. I concentrating on breathing and nothing else.

I felt Aoife's eyes on me, and I felt sorry for the kid. She was going to be crushed by this life, I just know it. She's cursed with a pure heart, an innocence that can't be faked, and everybody sees it, plain as day, even me, for God's sakes! And I'm blind. So everybody took advantage of it. If she weren't always in the scullery under Margaret's watchful, brooding eye, and then at night, in Margaret's room, under Margaret's autocratic will, the poor kid would've been taken out in a stretcher a long time ago from just simply the teasing of the other girls. Sarah would have been all over her and cut her to the quick, day one.

Scullery duty was hell on earth, no joke: endless, exhausting work, all day, every single day. But once Aoife got out of the kitchen, because she was deemed old enough ...?

The first sir would break her heart with his callousness. The first week of them would break her spirit.

Some girls lasted years. Some girls months. Aoife? Weeks? Days?

I pitied the kid. This wasn't the place for her. Too young, too Irish, too innocent, too stupid to stand up for herself, or to hide herself in herself, like I did, sealing off my heart so that nothing touched me anymore. I could take Margaret's beating, and it hurt like hell, but what else could I do? When Margaret got like that, it was just best to let her fury wash over you, and then she was done, and it was in the past.

I don't dwell. I can't afford to. I just try to stay out of trouble.

That hasn't been working out so well today, unfortunately, as trouble has been comin' 'round, lookin' for me!

My train of thought was interrupted by Margaret lumbering up to us again. Everything Margaret did was loud, bearish, and it bore out in the telltale sounds she made, like now: she pulled a chair around, facing us, the legs of the chair scraping across the poured foundation of the basement that was her dwelling during the day, and then sat down heavily in the chair.

"Ten o' the clock!" Margaret announced. "I need this God-damn break!" she muttered.

I heard a match strike, then the smell of cigarette smoke invaded my nostrils as I heard Margaret puffing away at a fag.

She took a long, deep drag, then – _plop!_ – I nearly jumped in my seat as a heavy plate Margaret grabbed from her work table hit my lap.

"You two," Margaret barked. "Eat that. I wanna see you eat every bite of it, too!" She paused, then snapped, "Go on, now! I dinna ha' all day!"

You can take a Scot out of Scotland, but you can't take Scotland out of the Scot, I reflected.

I felt the plate and on it was a slab of bread, big and thick and dense. Next to it were big, slimy chunks of ham, cold from the larder, and rubbery fingers of cheese.

My fingers touched a big dollop of mustard, too.

My tummy growled.

Aoife whispered a faint: "Thank ye, Margaret," and picked up a thick chunk of ham, taking a tiny bite out of it and chewed daintily. I did the same.

Margaret blew out a long sigh over me, her breath stank of smoke. "You kids!" she grumbled and lit another cigarette, standing, her chair creaking, scraping across the floor, relieved of her weight.

Furtively in my ear: _"You eat most of this, please! I'm still full from breakfast!"_ Aoife's little breath of a whisper.

"Okay," I whispered back as I picked up a cheese stick and tore off some bread, filling the empty pit in my stomach.

Margaret's voice drifted from over by the stove. "The whole plate, you two!" she warned.

She came back to us, spoons clinking in mugs.

"A bit o' sweet to complement the savory!" she announced. "Aoife, be a dear. You hold the plate now."

Aoife's little hand tugged the plate from my lap and Margaret put the mug handle in my hand.

Tea. Of course, sweetened with honey.

I took a careful sip, slurping in the hot beverage so it wouldn't burn my mouth, the resumed eating, Margaret watching me like a hawk the whole time.

Just like old times.

Margaret finished her second cig and lit a third. Three fags in five minutes. She really did need this break.

She spoke. "Remember when you were seven?"

She was addressing me.

"Yeah, ..." I said. "Vaguely, I guess."

Margaret took another long pull from her cigarette. "Remember when you came down here one day. You had missed breakfast and were askin' if you could have a just little something, remember that?"

I thought as I chewed on a piece of ham. "Uh, ... no," I said. "I don't recollect."

"Yeah," Margaret said, remembering. "You were just a wee thing ... still are!" she added disapprovingly. "So pale and sickly-looking and giving me those big sad eyes."

"I _wasn't giving you sad eyes, Margaret! God!"_ I cut in angrily.

Like I knew how my eyes looked. Really!

That offended me.

"Yeah," Margaret continued, not hearing me. "Well, I said, 'no!' of course. Rules are rules. You miss breakfast, that's your own God-damn fault. Back home knee-biters sometimes get one meal a day and are God-damn grateful to get eve' tha'! You God-damn 'Merkans have no spine, so missing one meal give you a little fortitude, a little discipline, a little God-damn punc-tu-al-i-ty! Toughen you up a bit, and make you appreciate what you got. So I said to you. It wouldn't kill you to suffer through a little bit o' hunger."

Margaret took another pull from her cig. "Remember that now?"

I shrugged. Nothing rang any bells.

"You don't remember," Margaret said wonderingly. She slurped noisily at her own drink and lit another cigarette.

Her fourth one.

"Yeah," she said. "Turns out it was the onset of the flu. And it was a bad one. It swept through the saloon, and the whole town. A bunch of people died, including three of the girls. You almost did, too. Day two nothing stayed down. Soup, water, nothing. It all came right back up. Day three you were delirious and just dry-heaving 'cause nothing was left of you. And I just ..."

Margaret broke off and took a pull from her cigarette. "I just held you to my bosom and changed out the cold compresses over and over as the fever burned in your head, and I watched you wither away, and then ..."

Margaret snorted loudly into her hand and then wiped-wiped against her apron.

"That first whimper from you, when the fever broke, that first tiny sip of soup you kept down, ..." Margaret sniffled.

Then suddenly she became brusque.

"Well," she said, sniffling loudly one more time. _"I_ have to get lunch ready, and aren't _you_ supposed to be helping Ned tend bar now?"

I heard her grab the plate and then the cup from my hand.

"Yes'm," I said softly.

"Well, get to it, gurl!" Margaret bellowed, her old self again.

She rose from the chair and returned to the work table. The cleaver went _thwack! thwack! thwack!_

I stood. "Thank you for the food, Margaret." I said softly.

"Get the hell out of my kitchen, you!" she snarled.

...

"You know, thanks a lot for free tanning, Sarah!" I hissed to her in passing, waiting on our early lunch crowd.

"You're _so_ welcome!" was her sarcastic reply. "And you know what? I did you a favor."

"You _what?"_ I demanded, furious.

"Did Margie-pargie force you to eat something after, huh? That is: did you get something to eat? Didja?" she countered.

I sputtered: "You could have just asked, you know!"

 _"Oh!_ and she would have said, 'Oh, yeah, sure! I'm not busy! Steal what you want from the larder! No charge!' Really?" Sarah retorted angrily.

"Maybe she would have!" I shouted.

 _"Hey! You two! C'mer!"_

Fuck. Ned. He never got angry. But if he told Madame... _God damn it!_

We both headed over to Ned, putting on contrite faces. Sarah was probably didn't even have to work out how this little altercation was all my fault somehow, because she always had it together. God! Could this day get any worse?

Sarah whispered to me as we hustled toward Ned to get a talking-to: "You are so fucking delusional! You never used to be a problem, and now you're nothin' but trouble. I don't know what the hell happened last night, and, frankly, I don't care. But this isn't fucking La, La land, toots! Get your fucking head back in the game!"

And as vicious as Sarah was being, a tiny, little voice was telling me: she was right.


End file.
